I have a presentation entitled “Engaging Students with Relevant Case Study from Open Education Resources” and am looking for opportunities to join colleagues who share similar interests to organize a panel session at either TLC@AoM or in the MED division of AoM at the AoM Vancouver Conference in August 2020. Below is a brief introduction to my presentation. A full version can be provided upon request via email. Thanks for your attention.
“I have been using the story of Rick Rescorla as a case study in my graduate and undergraduate management classes around September 11 every fall since 2016. Rick Rescorla was a true American hero in both the Vietnam War and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. As the security director of Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center South Tower, he led a successful evacuation of 2,700 employees of Morgan Stanley out of the South Tower with his great judgement and leadership, but got himself killed when trying to assure every employee has left the building. President Trump just accounted on September 11, 2019 that he would award Rick Rescorla the Presidential Citizens Medal.
As a corporate executive as well as a hero, Rick Rescorla perfectly displayed those leadership characters and skills we want our students to learn in management classes – predicting and preparing for the future, crisis leadership, professionalism and commitment to the employees, upholding his right judgement against the authority’s wrong call to say put, and so on. Every time we discussed the case all my students were deeply moved – most of them have never heard of him. But after the case study some students said that they would recall Rick Rescorla whenever they hear about September 11, 2001 from now on.
In my presentation, I will introduce to the audience not only the Rick Rescorla case as an illustrative exemplar, but also (and more importantly) several pedagogical considerations of using relevant case study from open education resources to engage students – how to identify “relevant” cases, where to find information about the case from reliable open resources, how to organize case study in classroom or online, and so on.